Only on RGJ.com: Former SoDo owner finds new purpose

Joel Giandalia, longtime Reno restaurateur, is the new beverage and food director of Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel. Giandalia sold the old SoDo restaurant in March 2017.(Photo11: Johnathan L. Wright/RGJ)Buy Photo

Joel Giandalia, the longtime Reno restaurateur who sold the popular SoDo in March 2017, has come off the slopes and in from the greens for a new gig: director of beverage and food for Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel.

"You can only ski so much and play so much golf," Giandalia said in an exclusive chat with @RGJTaste. "I came out of retirement because I realized how much I need and want to be working at something I love with people I enjoy.

"That was the best part of SoDo: being a local destination where I was providing lunch and dinner to my friends, not 'customers.' While the Renaissance is a national brand, the hotel itself is locally owned and operated. It totally felt like the right fit for me."

Bye bye, box

Giandalia recently was surfing LinkedIn when a prompt sent him to a listing for the Renaissance Reno position. He signaled his interest, the hotel signaled back, and things moved quickly from there, Giandalia said. He started June 15 as the beverage and food director.

The title reverses the industry's usual hierarchy — food, then beverage — for the job. That's deliberate, Giandalia said.

CLOSE

A look at the decor and menu at The Shore Room, the Truckee River-front restaurant in the new Renaissance Reno hotel.
Johnathan L. Wright/RGJ

"Renaissance has renamed many traditional roles to be more reflective of a mindset that doesn't look outside the box but gets rid of the box. One of their mantras is 'business unusual.' "

"For the first few weeks, I will be doing the same thing you have always known me to do: putting the polish on the product," Giandalia said. "We need to makes sure we can always provide the most important part of being in beverage and food: consistency."

New happy hour

Part of that, Giandalia continued, is "finding out what guests are enjoying and what needs to be changed."

To that end, he and Shore Room chef Jacob Burton, one of Reno's most talented, are adding items to the restaurant's breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. Happy hour has begun in the Shore Room Lounge with a larger menu.